Teaching and Learning with Emerging Technologies: Blogs, Wikis, RSS, and Social Bookmarking

• Thursday March 1, 2007
  1:00 pm �" 4:30 pm
  Rio Salado College, Rio Tower Rm. 515

• Saturday February 24, 2007
  8:30 am �" 12:00 pm
  Phoenix College, Coronado Rm

Doesn't this bookmark kinda look like a computer mouse?

Although it's already been over a month since the first Sandbox series workshop, I'm still glowing on how well it went. We had eleven participants, including a handful of CTL members and another group of Librarians. I admit, I pressured the Librarians to coming; I really wanted them to play with the social bookmarking tools. We talked about regular bookmarking, social bookmarking, and blogging (25ish minutes). The participants then spent the remainder of the time (60ish minutes) playing with the technologies. We also had a good discussion about security issues. According to the evaluations (both right after the workshop and a month later), people seemed pleased with the workshop.

Regular Bookmarking: I told everyone that I had started giving my students access to a bookmarks file that I made with various resources. I tell students they can import the file into either their Firefox bookmarks or IE my favorites.

Social Bookmarking: As a writing instructor, I discussed how these tools both help students keep track of their research, as well as find new resources by filtering through the social links available.

Blogs: We discussed what blogs were (web-logs) and I discussed how I use them in my classes and as a professional journal.

• Sandbox Pageflake with resources: http://www.pageflakes.com/rrodrigo.ashx?page=3230142
• Documents from Sandbox series: http://www.box.net/public/60ri70hojt

In educational settings do we have more equitable posting because we require students to post?

I've been following Jakob Nielsen's alertbox postings for a couple years now. One of the things I find fascinating about more "traditional" usability studies (which I associate with Nielsen's work) is that they are very focuses on business models/websites. The more I read about them, the more I realize that educationally focused websites (specifically "course" or "lesson" materials) do not necessarily follow the same trends. For example, Nielsen just posted this alertbox about user inequality of participation on social networking and other "input" internet site like blogs (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html).

I think that educators learned this lesson really quickly with discussion boards. If we didn't motivate students to post (ie, require a certain amount), the discussion would be very uneven. Now that I've switched to blogs, I have my students blogging regularly, because they have to. So, again, my interpretation of Nielsen's warning is slightly different. He claims that since participation is unequal, we can't rely on the feedback based on participants and participation statistics. Whereas, when studying technologies in my classes, I think I can rely a little more because everyone is required to use the technologies...they are not there by choice! My usability studies based on these users is not as lopsided; however, it is unbalanced in other ways...as are all studies.

How do we support students in a class when we are asking them to learn new technologies?

What I have done: In the past I have primarily done two thinks. First, I build in "learn the technology" assignments. I find that students do not just "play to learn" the technologies unless they are given an assignment, with points attached to it. So I build in assignments that require them to do some assignment with the technology that is not really important for learning the content. For example, I have them post introductions in their blogs (or in the discussion board) and have them bookmark two of their favorite sites. Second, I try to make instructions (usually directions with screen captures) available for the students.

What I did this time:

But, this semester, I didn't since I was having different classes use different "brands" of the same technologies (blogs, bookmarking, etc.). Instead, I told students that they should look at the various site's "instructions" and "help" pages.

More importantly, I had "open lab" periods the first two weeks of class. And whereas I could have just left that an option, I did realize no one would come. Instead, I gave a little bit of extra credit for students to come. Some students who had already figured out the technology just came, listened to questions and answers. Others who were sincerely struggling used the time to get various technologies set up and learned how to use them. This worked out wonderfully! I got to meet some of my online students that I would not see otherwise. Many students said that this made me seem more accessible and that they were then more willing to contact me for help with other issues.

Finally, hee hee, I have built in "build instructions" assignments to my ENG111: technical writing course. The default scenario is building instructions for one of the technologies we've used in class. This means I should be able to use them in future classes. ;-) Don't worry, I told students they could propose other scenarios!

What I need to do in the future:

• Instead of suggesting that students read the various "instructions" or "help" pages, assign them!
• Make the "learn the technology" assignments have a "no later than date" (but not the first week, more like end of the second week).
• Run Captivate every time I log on and play with a new technology. That way I can keep and edit the video if I ever use it with one of my classes. (This is by far the hardest of these options…we'll see.)

Another problem: I've accepted that I have students test run new technologies in my classes; however, this sometimes mean they need a little more time and energy to learn the technology. And then, sometimes, the technology itself is a little cranky (beta testing, server switching, etc.).

A possible solution?: I decided to try to incorporate a "flexible deadline" policy for my students this semester. I basically said that all deadlines are "flexible" unless they have a "not accepted late" next to them. I only made assignments that require student feedback (ie, drafts and peer reviews of major writing assignments) "not accepted late." This leaves all of the "homework" of the course, and the final submission of major writing assignments, due "whenever." There is a "no late work accepted after this date" in the second to the last week of the semester. I do list weekly deadlines as the suggested work pace for the courses.

This leaves students the time to learn technologies, have technology glitches, and have "life-happenings" emerge. We'll see how this experiment works this semester…

I've decided that I love having bankers, or people that work for banks, in my classes. They always point out various "security" glitches with the technologies I'm using. A few years back a colleague and I did usability testing on our online courses. After one session the student (a banker) when to log out of the course management system…oops, our campus IT folks had not built that option into our instance of the system.

Lately I've been playing around with a lot of "social" technologies, specifically blogs, bookmarking, and portals. And for me to see what the students are doing, I require that they make them "live" or "public." Well, I have another banker this semester, and he is very uncomfortable about that. And obviously, there are also the issues with student privacy. I said no problem! I knew that we could "share" our bookmarking and pageflakes accounts. I also knew that I had seen a privacy/password option in one of the blogging systems. Of course, the privacy option was not in the system I had selected to test run with his section, so he is odd man out with another blogging tool. However, I'm also now test-running the "sharing" versus "public" functions in all these tools.

Ultimately I think this is good for two reasons. One, if a student is really uncomfortable, I want them to still be able to participate in the class. Granted, at this other students can not benefit, nor comment, on his work; however, if I required all students to share, instead of going public, it would resolve the problem. And the second reason? Back to student privacy rights; however, I think it is important to interegate this issue a bit. If you believe in social constructivist theories of learning it requires that students interact with one another, one another's ideas, and one another's work. Any writing class that uses peer review does not keep all student "private."

The fun, yet overwhelming and time consuming, aspect of my R&D gig for Ocotillo is all of the options available to play with Blogs, Social Bookmarking, RSS aggregators, and other "gluing" tools. However, as happens with any type of research, we do take into account our context and resources…ie, what we have access to. For example, I would really like to play a little more with open source course/content management systems; however, that also requires a heavy level of planning with my CTL technology folks. Not impossible, just planning that I'm not organized or motivated enough to do, as of yet! But with the numerous "free" interactive programs available on the net, I'm at least good to go for this semester.

Since I have already been playing with blogs for a year, I felt very comfortable running all of my different courses with a different blogging program. Since pretty much all blogs have RSS feeds (kinda the basis of their technology), I was pretty much open to playing with anything. However, I did get requests from my CTL this time. They first asked if I would test run the blogging option available in the newer version of WebCT; however, they were not able to make that upgrade in time for the fall semester. Guess what I'll be playing with next spring? But they were willing to install some instances of WordPress for one of my classes. I used Uniblogs last spring and summer, and Uniblogs switched, or glitched, their servers in the summer…which was not pleasant during five week courses! However, I had liked WordPress (what Uniblogs used)…so we're trying it at school. I decided to also to test run Live Journal, an older blogging program, as well as Blogger. Although I like Bloglines because of the built in RSS aggregator, the blog does not allow replies (or at least the last time I looked it didn't).

Now my social bookmarking choices were a little more bias and contextual driven. I am very biased towards Furl because it has such a robust annotating options, including the fact it actually saves the page. However, Del.icio.us is the more "popular" (as in more widely recognized and adopted) and I think it does a better job of the "social" aspect…networking topics, entries, individuals, etc. My final option? Of course you would think I would do a little research and see what is the buzz and what is currently being applauded as a "good" bookmarking service. But NOOOO…instead, my choice is based on the fact that Ma.gnolia is one of the bookmarking services that already has a flake option in Pageflakes. Since I wanted students to use Pageflakes, I made sure they say "familiar" names (Pageflakes also had Del.icio.us and Furl options).

And all of this to say (basically I need to wrap this blog entry)…context matters! People need to recognize a variety of things influence the adoption of technologies (or textbooks, or…). And I think that is ok, we just need to be aware of what is influencing us.

This past summer I asked that the college pay for an institutional access to an online workshop. Since it was the end of the fiscal year, an administrator scraped up the money and just asked that I make sure to invite others to the event. I worked with our CTL (Center for Teaching and Learning) and got about eight people (including some adjuncts) to attend. While we watched/listened to the presentation we had a few side conversations. But afterwards, we chatted for about thirty minutes with me sharing ideas of some wacky stuff I've already done. And then after everyone else left, I chatted with my CTL contact/friend about how I could have easily done the workshop myself. That's when we came up with the idea of Shelley's Sandbox Series (officially called the Technology Sandbox).

The theory behind the sandbox series is that folks need a venue to learn about technologies as well as some time and resources to try out the technologies…in other words, to play. Therefore we designed this series of "workshops" that only have the facilitator (me at this point, but we can easily incorporate others) introduce the technology for 20-30 minutes, pass out some quick "getting started" instructions, as well as a few idea of how to play. Then, give the workshop participants an hour or so just to play.

We had our first workshop yesterday and I think it was a success. Many participants mentioned that they needed the time to play with new technologies (or processes, ideas, etc.). And by slotting it as a workshop, they built the time into their day. I'm very excited that our CTL allowed the series to count as Café credit for the adjunct instructors. By participating in the Café program, adjuncts can get paid for attending professional development workshops.

We have eight workshops scheduled throughout the year. We'll be covering:

· Thursday, 8/31: Bookmarking & Blogs, Come out and play with cool tools like: Furl, Del.icio.us, Blogger, Uniblogs, & Live Journal

· Friday, 9/29: Blogs & RSS, Come out and play with cool tools like: Uniblogs, Bloglines, Sharpreader, Newsgator, Sage, & Gritwire

· Thursday, 10/26: Wikis, Come out and play with cool tools like: Wikispaces, PBwiki, Writely, & Zoho Writer

· Thursday, 11/30: Social Networking & Instant Messaging, Come out and play with cool tools like: MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, AIM, & Trillian

· Friday, 1/26: iPods & Podcasting, Come out and play with cool tools like: iPods, Audacity, AudioBlogger

· Thursday, 2/22: Idea/Image Networks, Come out and play with cool tools like: 43 Things/Places/People, Flickr, Photobucket, & LibraryThing

· Friday, 3/30: Tagging & Gluing it all Together, Come out and play with cool tools like: Technorati, SuprGlu, PageFlakes

· Thursday, 4/26: Virtual Reality, Come out and play in the virtual world of Second Life. You will be responsible for opening your account prior to attending the session. The sandbox facilitator will send you information about getting an account in Second Life.

And to top it all, the CTL has come up with the coolest logo to brand the series.

Play On!